ABSTRACT
Early modern Venice was famous for religious tolerance. Greek Orthodox, Jews, and Protestants could practice their own religions there. However, its religious policy has been generally considered from the perspective of each religion separately. This chapter attempts to give a more integrated view. In Venice, there were many goods and information from various places, and many foreigners who carried with them different languages, customs, and religions. The chapter presents the chronology of Venetian attitude towards the important non-Catholic religious groups. It is difficult to see that Venice had a consistent religious policy over time, although Venice preferred compromise to confrontation with Rome. On the other hand, it seems that Venice did have one consistent policy—namely the policy to give first priority to keeping internal peace, political independence, and economic prosperity—in other words to raison d'État. Therefore, the religious policy could be said to be a subordinate variable of it.
